


Unconditional

by fridaysblues (taemin)



Series: In Pursuit of Happiness AU [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post Mpreg, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:27:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21743722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taemin/pseuds/fridaysblues
Summary: Five times Chanyeol proposes, and one time he doesn't.Set before Jericho.
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Park Chanyeol
Series: In Pursuit of Happiness AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/388891
Comments: 15
Kudos: 153





	Unconditional

**I.**

Kyungsoo doesn’t say yes the first time Chanyeol proposes.

It’s only been a week after Minsu’s birth. Kyungsoo still can’t get from a seated to a standing position without needing some assistance, so he spends most of his time in bed or on the couch while Chanyeol transforms into Super Dad. If Kyungsoo were a manipulative person, he probably could get anything he ever wanted out of Chanyeol’s guilt, but instead he spends his time sleeping fitfully or staring into Minsu’s dark eyes, cuddling him, talking to him, singing to him. Chanyeol does his best to shoulder the bulk of the work—he only takes Minsu away from Kyungsoo for diaper changes or when Kyungsoo starts dozing off.

He says it out of nowhere. "I really want to marry you." 

Kyungsoo’s sitting up in bed with the aid of a few strategically placed pillows, and it takes a minute for his brain to register what Chanyeol just said. He glances up from Minsu’s face and squints. Without his glasses, Chanyeol’s face is a blurry impression.

"You’re sleep-deprived," Kyungsoo decides, going back to studying Minsu’s perfect, fat baby cheeks.

"Is that a yes?" Chanyeol gingerly slides across the sheets to sit closer to Kyungsoo but doesn’t touch him for fear of jostling Minsu awake.

"No."

He pouts. "Why not?"

"We talked about this. We don’t need to be married to be his parents."

"That’s not why. I want to marry you because I love you."

"I love you too, but that’s still not a good reason," Kyungsoo says, finally looking up at Chanyeol. "Look, we just brought him home, can we figure out how to do this, first—"

"Yeah, you’re right, I’m sorry," Chanyeol blurts, waving his hands. "Forget it, forget it."

**II.**

The first weekend Chanyeol’s been away since Minsu was born goes smoothly. Minsu’s sleep schedule has become, for the moment at least, predictable enough to manage. Kyungsoo puts Minsu down in his crib after dinner and only manages to watch ten minutes of something on Netflix before he passes out on Chanyeol’s side of the bed with all of the lights still on.

His phone rings sometime around midnight and scares him awake. He can’t sleep through anything anymore. He doesn't even let it get to the second ring before he answers.

"What’s wrong?" he demands immediately, residual adrenaline thrumming in his veins.

"Nothing, hi, oh my god, I miss you so much," Chanyeol slurs, sounding fucking _plastered_. He’s staying with Baekhyun and Jongdae, who have an incredible liquor cabinet and have apparently been funneling it into Chanyeol for the better part of the evening. "It _really sucks_ being here without you."

"Hi, I miss you too," Kyungsoo says patiently. "Where’s Baekhyun?"

"I don’t know. Oh. Inside, I guess."

"You’re outside?"

"No, I’m in New York, remember?"

Kyungsoo laughs and falls back against the pillows. Drunk Chanyeol is a pain in the ass, but he’s also weirdly charming and hilarious when he’s wasted. "Yes, I remember. You’re outside their apartment?"

"Hm? No?"

Never mind. Definitely more annoying than anything else at the moment. "Chanyeol. Go to bed."

"No, I wanted to ask you something first."

Kyungsoo rolls over and turns out the light. "Yeah?" he says impatiently. "Go ahead, then."

"You’re rushing me!"

"You’re drunk and I’m tired, so yes, I’m going to hang up if you don’t—"

"When are you going to marry me?"

Kyungsoo’s breath catches in his throat. It takes a moment to unstick his tongue. "You’re proposing to me over the phone in the middle of the night, when you’re drunk off your ass and in another city?"

"Yes, I am, because I really, really want to get married."

Kyungsoo snorts and rolls over. The sheets muffle his voice a little bit. "No, Chanyeol. I’m going to say no every time you ask."

"You’ll say yes one day," Chanyeol says, laughing, completely undeterred by Kyungsoo’s stubbornness. "You love me, Do Kyungsoo, and I’m going to be your husband."

"You will be the only one at the altar," Kyungsoo tells him, and hangs up without saying goodnight.

**III.**

"When we get married, we should—"

"We’re not going to get married," Kyungsoo says, smoothly cutting off Chanyeol’s sentence before he can tell Kyungsoo exactly what he wants to do.

Chanyeol is unfazed. "Fine, it'll be a surprise," he says. "That's even better."

**IV.**

Minsu hits a bad bout of colic around two months and suddenly starts crying for days at a time, or at least that’s how it feels when Chanyeol leaves for a gig and Kyungsoo’s all on his own for four days. By Sunday night, Kyungsoo is delirious and unwashed and feeling so much like a failure that Minsu won't stop crying that his own eyes get itchy and damp.

"What do you want?" he whispers, wobbly and fragile, after Minsu spits out his pacifier for the nth time and keeps on wailing. Kyungsoo feels himself wilt, holding Minsu’s tiny body close, patting his diapered butt gently in time with the Law & Order theme song playing on the TV. "I'm so sorry, I'm not cut out for this," he says. "You win."

Chanyeol arrives home from the weekend in New York and finds the apartment in utter disarray, Kyungsoo curled up on the couch with a still-cranky baby zipped in his sweatshirt to keep him swaddled and warm.

"What the hell. It's 3 AM," Chanyeol says, genuinely surprised to find all the lights still on, like the time is somehow news to the clock-watching Kyungsoo. The regular channels aren’t even playing shows anymore, just never-ending infomercials for knives that can cut through tin cans, although why anyone would want to cut through a tin can, Kyungsoo has no idea.

"Try telling him that," Kyungsoo says glumly. His nerves are frayed. He wants to scream, too. "He's been crying all night. Since you left, practically."

"Poor little guy," Chanyeol says calmly, leaning his guitar case against the credenza and holding out his hands. "Here. You can clock out and go to bed. I'll take the next shift."

"No, you just drove back—"

"I had a lot of coffee, I’m awake. And you haven’t seen yourself. You look haunted," Chanyeol says, lifting Minsu up to cradle him against his shoulder. "I’ll hang out here with him for a while."

Kyungsoo can't help it, his eyes well up, equal parts relieved and frustrated. Chanyeol sees it and leans in to kiss his temple.

"Not you, too," he says quietly, teasing. "I only have so many hands."

"I don’t want to go to bed without you," Kyungsoo says.

"Okay. Let me get washed up, then." Chanyeol hands Minsu back to Kyungsoo, which sets Minsu off crying again. "I promise I will be right back. Get comfortable."

Chanyeol showers because he smells like city and then comes back into the living room to cuddle on the couch, wedged up behind Kyungsoo. It’s a tight fit, but with Minsu on Kyungsoo’s chest, Chanyeol’s able to wrap his arms around the both of them, rubbing Minsu’s back until his fussing gradually peters out into heavy breathing and finally, _finally_ , he settles enough to sleep.

"You’re magical," Kyungsoo whispers after a while, hesitant to break the spell. "How do I repay you?"

Chanyeol hums in reply, tucking his nose in the space behind Kyungsoo’s ear, kissing the skin there. "You could marry me," he rumbles, his breath warm on Kyungsoo’s neck.

"Pass. Pick something else," Kyungsoo says.

Chanyeol laughs quietly and presses another kiss against Kyungsoo's neck. "I can wait," he says. "Take your time."

**V.**

Chanyeol doesn't mention the m-word again until August, when Kyungsoo gets a call from Berklee. He's been in touch with his old voice professor, who put in a good word for him in the admissions office, and suddenly going back to school part-time turned into a full-time job in the admissions office with the ability to take a couple classes on the side, and it's a little terrifying to think of the weird 180 his life has taken into permanence when a year ago, he'd been halfway across the country with no plans on ever coming back to Boston, let alone back to school.

Chanyeol, of course, is ecstatic. "I always wanted to marry a professor," he says proudly, ruffling Kyungsoo's hair with his free hand.

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and does his best to rake his hair back to its previously-neat state. "One, sorry to ruin your fantasies, but I'm just an aide. I don't even get my own office. And two, I've told you a hundred times, we're not—"

"You should marry Daddy!" Chanyeol says in a high-pitched voice, holding Minsu up to cover his face. Minsu enjoys being bounced around and smiles at the silly voice, sticking his fist in his mouth.

Kyungsoo melts a little at the sight of him. Minsu's got Chanyeol's dimples and they're _devastating_. Kyungsoo has no willpower at all, not when they both gang up on him with their matching smiles.

"Come here," he says, holding out his hands. Chanyeol passes him over gently, waiting until he's safely in Kyungsoo's lap to let go. "Tell your dad to stop putting you in the middle."

"He _is_ in the middle, though," Chanyeol says reasonably, tickling under Minsu's chin. 

Kyungsoo sighs. "Chanyeol."

"All right, all right. I'll stop bugging you about it, I promise," Chanyeol says, and actually sounds serious, which makes Kyungsoo feel weird and conflicted all of a sudden, and unable to put into words the reason why.

**\+ 1**

They go out for Chanyeol's birthday and leave Minsu with Chanyeol's parents for a couple of hours. They’re used to this by now—their parents take turns looking after Minsu when Chanyeol’s traveling and Kyungsoo’s at work, but it still feels strange not having to navigate the trip downtown with a stroller and diaper bag in tow. They’re only going to be away from him for a few hours, but Chanyeol keeps checking his phone and texting his mom for updates, asking for pictures that he promptly thrusts in Kyungsoo's face for inspection. There's an especially cute one of Minsu sitting up by himself behind an old plastic xylophone that had once been Chanyeol's, back when he was a baby.

"I can't wait to start teaching him how to play," Chanyeol says, and Kyungsoo looks up at him, seeing him differently all at once, suddenly able to visualize it so clearly it makes him ache. Or maybe it's the bottle of wine they're splitting over dinner, the first alcohol he's had in over a year. It’s doing things to his head, because that can’t be his voice, and yet, improbably: 

"We should get married."

Chanyeol's eyes light up, warm and soft and fond. "Yeah? Name the date. I'll be there."

"Next weekend. I don't want to wait," Kyungsoo says, conveniently sidestepping the fact that he'd made Chanyeol wait for months for his answer.

"Done." Chanyeol grins. "I've got to work next week but I'll be back late Friday night. We can go to the courthouse on Saturday." He digs around in his pocket for a moment and extracts a small, clamshell box that opens to reveal two identical rings in it.

"How long have you had those?" Kyungsoo asks. "You've been carrying these with you all the time, waiting for me to say yes?"

"You don’t even want to know."

"I do," he presses, his throat feeling tight all of a sudden. "I do want to know. How long?"

"Christmas," Chanyeol says, "I knew you weren’t ready yet, but I wanted them just in case," and _that_ does it. Before they’d even officially put a name to what they were doing, before Minsu was even born—he’s had them that long. The dam breaks.

"Jesus christ, you idiot. I told you no a thousand times. You’re hopeless," Kyungsoo says, and starts crying right there in the middle of the restaurant, until Chanyeol gathers him up in his arms to kiss him and whisper, "Come on. Let’s go home to our kid. I miss him."

"Me too," Kyungsoo says, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Chanyeol lets him go, but only after he lands a bruising kiss on his hairline.

"You’re not going to change your mind, are you?" Chanyeol asks on their way out. 

Kyungsoo laughs and puts his hand in Chanyeol's coat pocket to keep warm. His hand bumps against the furred velvet of the ring box and he wraps his fingers around it, tight enough to reassure himself that it's really there, this is really happening.

"No," he says, leaning into Chanyeol's side to block out the sharp wind that whips right through him. He looks up and catches Chanyeol watching him. "I'm not if you're not."

"Not a chance," Chanyeol says, and wraps his arms around Kyungsoo so tightly that he can't feel the cold anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> For Grazi. Consider this a warm-up for part four. I thought I was done with this AU, but I guess not.


End file.
